


Warm face, warm hands, warm feet (Oh, wouldn't it be lovely?)

by Turtles



Category: One Direction
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mythology, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-07
Updated: 2013-01-07
Packaged: 2017-11-24 01:10:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/628605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Turtles/pseuds/Turtles
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU based on the Ovid's Pygmalion, or Louis is a sculptor who falls in love with his work</p>
            </blockquote>





	Warm face, warm hands, warm feet (Oh, wouldn't it be lovely?)

Louis wakes up the way he does every morning, with the hot Italian sun filtering through an open window and to his eyes. He stretches and curls in the sheets, his skin tan against the pale cloth, and gets up. Pulling on and tying his robe he shuffles into his sandals, grabbing bread and wine for breakfast, before heading to his studio.

There in the middle room is a half carved statue of a man. Tall and broad, carved out of ivory and nearly finished. Louis picks up his tools and with a fond smile at the scuplture says, "Hello, Harry."

-

Louis hadn't meant to fall in love with his own artwork. He really hadn't. It was a little lonely on the outskirts of Rome. There were few people his age here, and everyone was being tupped by some God or another. Niall had run off last week with Zayn, deity of the underworld. Louis just thought he was misunderstood, to be honest. It's not like he actually killed people. Just shepherded their souls. He was doing them a favor.

The point is that it was hard to find someone to love in the country. Everyone was nice enough, but Louis had been an artist his entire life. He was always finding otherworldly beauty in his pieces. Watching something slowly come to life from his hands. So, it was hard to settle.

Except now he didn't need to settle, because he'd fallen in love with a sodding statue. 

“Maybe it would help if you could talk back, maybe if you didn't listen so nicely to all my words. It'd be easier not to like you.” Louis smoothed down Harry's cheek, he went a little too far with his hand though, and it ended dimpling his cheek. Of course. On top of everything now Harry was smiling at him. No, dimpling at him.

Louis frowned down at his hands, then at Harry's sincere stare. The curl of his hair that he'd spent hours on, each one crafted oh so carefully. Louis touched them now. The ivory was smooth against his hand and he sighed as he looked into Harry's eyes. “I wonder what color they're supposed to be. Blue maybe? That doesn't sound right.”

Louis continued carving. The curve of Harry's shoulder, then sloping into his arm. Losing himself in creating Harry's body, until it was sunset and Louis put down his tools. Sitting next to Harry and watching the sun go down, small hand resting on Harry's ankle.

“It all feels a bit silly doesn't it. But I feel like I know you. I feel like I'll always know you.” Louis watched night come up and as the house became darker he bid Harry good night and went to bed.

-

So Louis' days went on until one day Harry was finished. Louis hadn't even noticed, but as he put the finishing touches on Harry's long fingers. Telling him about his day at the market last week and as he moves on to work on another piece he stops. Because there is nothing else to work on. Harry is perfect.  
Louis looks up startled and the same warm gaze is in Harry's eyes. The same dimple, hair. Back and ass. Cock and thighs. Everything is just...done.

“Oh,” Louis exhales. “I didn't think this would ever actually happen.”

Louis sits down across from Harry, just staring at him for a long time. After that day Louis doesn't go into the studio for a week. He misses Harry, but it's too much to look at him. What is he to do with a finished sculpture? Keep it in his home? He's meant to display Harry. Sell him, even. He just, can't though.

When he comes back into the studio he feels a bit like a dog with a tail between his legs. He can barely meet Harry's eyes, but when he realizes how ridiculous that is he looks up. He is definitely imagining the sad eyes. “I'm sorry. It was all a bit too much. But you know. You're finished now. I'll taking you down to Rome once the roads clear up from Venus' festival. I'll find you a good home, Harry.”

He looks down then, to Harry's hand and curls his own there. It feels small against the sculpture's. “I'll miss you.”

-

Louis goes down to the temple the next day. It's Venus' day and as he clearly did something to anger the goddess last year, because he fell in love with a sculpture, he figured he'd better have a fucking great offering this year.

When he enters the temple though all he feels is overwhelming sadness. Sure, him and Harry didn't have the best relationship. Harry was inanimate. Louis had smelly feet. No relationship was perfect, but Louis did love Harry. Now. Now he had to give him up.

On his knees in front of the statue of the naked goddess he prayed. He prayed that if he couldn't have Harry, to send him someone like him. Someone with soft open eyes and a lush mouth. With a sweet slope of back, someone who feels as malleable beneath his hands as Harry. Who will watch him like he does and whose hand feels as right beneath his.

When he slips into bed that night, he still thinks of Harry. Wonders if he's cold in the small empty studio the way Louis is cold in his bed.

-

The next day it's time to take Harry to Rome and while normally the best part of Louis' morning is to see Harry, he drags his feet this time. He glances at the cart he's brought in to move Harry as he goes, then glances at Harry's frozen form wistfully.

“Well. We had fun right? I mean. I had fun. You were mostly frozen.” Louis babbles as he pulls out the tarp and rope, to make sure Harry doesn't break on the way there. That would be a travesty. As he goes to wrap Harry though, a sudden urge overtakes him.

“Goodbye.” Louis whispers, standing on tip toe. He smooths a hand down Harry's cheek, into the dimple and kisses him. A smooth slot of his lips against ivory.

Except that something odd happens. The cold, unfeeling stone beneath his lips turns to warm flesh, and arms wrap around him and lift making Louis gasp and pull back staring into eyes he'd never thought he'd know the color too, except now all he can do is stare into them because, “Green.”

Harry smiles and says, “Hi.”  
Louis' hands fly to Harry's throat, because it's a rasp he'd never thought he'd hear. “What? But you. I am severely confused and considering the odd fellow down the street turned into a literal ass last week I probably shouldn't be.”

Harry lets out a cackle and then looks severely embarrassed by it, “Yours doesn't sound like that.”

Louis is still being held up by Harry and he literally can't believe anything that is happening right now. “Oh, god. It's the wine. I overdid it on the wine last night. Well, if I'm to hallucinate at least feel me up a little.”

Harry grins cheekily at him and says, “Gladly.”

Louis' mouth finds Harry's again, and this is the best wine hallucination he's ever had, and Harry's hand is sneaking down his robes to his arse. Except he didn't have any wine last night. Thought he'd save up for Rome and, “Oh my god, you're real. You're really real and your hand is really on my bum and I have never been so glad to sculpt an extra inch in my life. You're real.”

“You're real,” Harry says and kisses Louis again. Of course Louis is real, Louis thinks. But then Harry's hand is slipping into the front of his tunic and he loses his train of thought as Harry's hand wraps around his prick.

“Oh,” Louis lets out into Harry's mouth. Harry pulls in slow unhurried strokes, and it has to have been Venus. Only the goddess of love and sex could have driven him to sculpt hands that would drive him crazy. Only she would have made him make a mouth that housed a tongue that would lick across his lips and make a blush rise high on his cheeks.

When Louis wraps a hand around Harry too, he sends a silent prayer of thanks up to her, because only she could have driven him to make this cock as well.

In the sticky sweaty aftermath Harry and Louis fall into bed and wrap around each other and Louis says, “I never thought I'd get to do this with you.”

Harry wraps Louis up in his arms and they as sleep overtakes him Louis thinks that he's not cold anymore. For all that he's cuddling with a statue, he's the warmest he's ever felt.

**Author's Note:**

> This is basically Alicia's fault.


End file.
